Maths Olympiad Prep

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Combinatorics Difficulty 5.3 AIME, harder Find the answer

Let NN denote the number of subsets of {1,2,3,,100}\{1,2,3, \ldots, 100\} that contain more prime numbers than multiples of 4. Compute the largest integer kk such that 2k2^{k} divides NN.

A number or a short expression. Spacing and $ signs are ignored.

Solution

Let SS denote a subset with the said property. Note that there are 25 multiples of 4 and 25 primes in the set {1,2,3,,100}\{1,2,3, \ldots, 100\}, with no overlap between the two. Let TT denote the subset of 50 numbers that are neither prime nor a multiple of 4, and let UU denote the 50 other numbers. Elements of TT can be arbitrarily included in or excluded by SS. Consider SU=S1S \cap U=S_{1} and US=S2U-S=S_{2} (the set difference is defined to be all elements of UU that are not in SS.) S1S_{1} and S2S_{2} are two disjoint sets such that U=S1S2U=S_{1} \cap S_{2}. If S1S_{1} contains more multiples of 4 than primes, then S2S_{2} contains more primes than multiples of 4, and conversely. Furthermore, S1S_{1} contains an equal number of primes and multiples of 4 if and only if S2S_{2} contains equal numbers as well. Let VV denote an arbitrary subset of TT. It follows from examining pairs of sets VS1V \cup S_{1} and VS2V \cup S_{2} that N=25012(250k=025(25k)2)=249(250(5025))\begin{aligned} N & =2^{50} \cdot \frac{1}{2}\left(2^{50}-\sum_{k=0}^{25}\binom{25}{k}^{2}\right) \\ & =2^{49} \cdot\left(2^{50}-\binom{50}{25}\right) \end{aligned} Since 50 ! is divisible by 2 exactly 25+12+6+3+1=4725+12+6+3+1=47 times while 25 ! is divisible by 2 exactly 12+6+3+1=2212+6+3+1=22 times, it follows that (5025)\binom{50}{25} is divisible by 2 exactly 3 times, so the answer is 49+3=5249+3=52.

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Source: Omni-MATH, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.